Thursday, January 17, 2008

Yo everyone! Super long time since I last posted! >< Anyway I'm just sitting in front of my com slacking after finally finishing Maths Tutorial 11 and becoming emo thinking of Orientation, so I decided to just recap what happened these last few months/days...its all still so clear in my mind...

Pre-orientation period in the Nov/Dec hols was really lots of fun. I got to know many new friends in Oteam and get closer to all my BB gang of people. My subcomm was External Activity, which wasn't really too taxing on all of us (except Junwei the i/c) coz I personally feel 20 people planning one major activity outside school is still a bit too many >< Anyway I wasn't that busy with preparing for EA/Orientation/OG stuff other than the few meetings/dry runs we had...most of the time in my hols was spent on house d stuff (as usual). We met up countless times to prepare for 2008 and the new J1s who were coming in, as we all believed that the best time to work on the house spirit is when the members first come into the school. Well anyway even though it was super tiring and stressful at times (yeah for EA we changed the programme majorly many times) I never ever regretted it and just wish that it didn't end so quickly :(

OG stuff was settled quite late and I got BB12. Sabby Lau (my co-OGL) and I decided to call it T'aupok after spamming many weird names :p We had lots of fun calling up our new J1s (I called the girls and she called the guys) and they were all like HUHHH when I told them our OG name lol! Anyway on new year's day I went to her house (and Ye Wei and Warren from our buddy OG joined in later) to prepare OG gifts. We folded these nice coloured wire into the letters RJC and wrote notes for every single one of them. And we baked cookies which were...not bad for a first try :D Haha and we were quite pro too...made the OG flag with nothing but a black marker and correction fluid. :)

Finally it was Day 1! We had to reach school at 6.30am every single day for briefing and preparation stuff ><><) at Pizza Hut and went to slack at the J8 2nd floor outside area.

For Day 2 the main highlight was station games and batch dance teaching! By then our OG had gotten to know each other better already and at least the girls were talking to the girls and the guys were talking to the guys ><>< After that we let them play the Earthquake Fire Flood thingy which we did during our own orientation. Then it was time for them to learn the first half of batch dance and batch song. I really love both...their batch dance is much easier to do than ours and the songs chosen are so much better :D and their batch song really rocks!!! It can be played emo or happy and I can't still sing it every single day whenever I'm free :)

Hmm for Day 3 it was my subcomm's big day. EA!!! Sadly that meant that we could not be with our OGs for the ENTIRE DAY. Early in the morning the whole EA subcomm had to gather the logs and leave for Sentosa. I stayed in school to hide the clue cards with Hong Jie everywhere before bringing the station masters to Sentosa. I thought we didn't really waste time but in the end...the first few OGs had already left while the station masters and I were still on the bus to Vivo >< So I had to call up all the EA people at Sentosa to change plans and get them to bring the logs to the station masters instead of vice versa to save time. In the end managed everything nicely and EA went off super smoothly except for the start in school, where some OGs found clue cards meant for OGs from other houses and took them with them, so some OGs were unable to find any cards and stuck in school until Junwei just let them go. I was forced to slack and be a cluster IC, meaning I was in charge of any accidents occuring in an area with teachers and a red cross person. Luckily the Raffles Chapter person who was supposed to be with me was sick so Weiming took her place instead and we sat at Koufu and walked around and talked for many hours. Then I heard from Sabby that our OG actually got first - 1st - FIRST for EA! They reached Tanjong Beach first and scored max points for BB :) Anyway it began to rain during the late afternoon so we had to end EA about 1 hour earlier than we wanted to :( but I think all the groups still had lots of fun! I went to Vivo with our OG and we discussed costume/performance and played Dare or Dare after that.

On Sat our OG went back to school to prepare their costume so I joined them. In the end they came up with a not-bad idea for a skit incorporating dances so they decided to try and audition even though the night before they had actually decided not to do so. Lol. It was really great to see them sitting in the canteen together making the nerd specs (yeah our theme was nerd outfit) and discussing/learning the dances together.

Finally the last day of orientation came on Monday! There was a whole morning/afternoon filled full of fun wargames. Our OG really enjoyed themselves even though everything was super tiring. In the middle of all that I had to send one of my OGlings back to boarding after he said he had a very bad stomach pain. Anyway the rest of the afternoon was spent rehearsing the performance and then auditioning. I could see they all tried their very best and had fun even though in the end they werent' one of the top 3 OGs to get in to perform for O'Nite. Finally it was O'Nite! We were all dressed up in our nerd outfits (which looked more weird/retarded than nerd) and they forced me to wear some rainbow coloured socks -.- O'Nite programme went very smoothly and everyone loved the burning of the T'sparanza at the end of it all. After that we went back to our T'avern outside GO/at the top of the watermelon steps and gave them our gifts for them. They also got some stuff for us and I received some small cakes and a toy hand massager thing. I was just super emo then that everything was over for ever and ever and ever :((( The OG went out for supper at food court at J8 and I joined them before we all went home about 11pm.

Well orientation passed in a blur and now that it's over, I realise how much fun I had during the prep period and those 4 days themselves. I think I've been a reasonably successful OGL, as our OG had quite a lot of fun and are quite bonded. They've already organised a few outings by themselves and stayed back together to play basketball/captain's ball :) Even though they will get further apart as time passes, I hope they will treasure the memories they have of each other and never forget any part of it all...

As the final line of their batch song goes:
"Maybe we will drift apart,
But promise you my friend, left you a space in my heart."

I love T'aupok and orientation and I miss it all terribly :(((